But what if I never starved myself?

jaydensmommy2010

I see a lot of people are coming here after eating 1200 calories... Will this work for people who never ate a low cal diet? I've been exercising the past year after having my son, but have not been dieting.. Obviously I didn't lose any weight, actually I'm gaining. Will this work for me if I have a lousy diet to start off with??

gemiwing

Well I suppose that would depend on your diet.

If you were eating 3500 cals a day before- and now you want to keep eating that amount, simply increase your exercise till your cals line up in a way that will bring about your weight loss. TDEE will be helpful there too. If you are eating above your TDEE- then increase your TDEE till you are eating the same amount but it is now a lower percentage of your TDEE. Thus, weight loss occurs.

If you were eating enough but not eating back exercise cals- then yes, eating those back can help.

For me, Eating More To Weigh Less is mostly about learning how to work the numbers and no longer feel that starvation or denial of food is the way to a healthy weight loss. It's not about, as Kiki says- having Thanksgiving every day. It's about learning about TDEE and how to program your weight loss without restricting nutrition or wearing ourselves out in cardio for hours. It's about balance for me.

31prvrbs

I see a lot of people are coming here after eating 1200 calories... Will this work for people who never ate a low cal diet? I've been exercising the past year after having my son, but have not been dieting.. Obviously I didn't lose any weight, actually I'm gaining. Will this work for me if I have a lousy diet to start off with??

Yes it will help you, because you will need to develop a consistent eating routine, regardless, and it's much more realistic to start off at higher levels than eating too little. The very low cal diets set you up for failure from the beginning....

Focusonfifty

First of all you will have to change your "Lousy Diet" to better food choices. Stop looking at it as a "diet", but as a life long journey of balance and nutrition. Balanced food groups combined with exercise. Change your mind, change your future.